Con Virgin

Yesterday, I headed over to a steampunk convention. As some of you know, I'm really interested in subcutltures, and steampunk is one of the newest around. I wanted to do a little amateur anthropology work.
But one of the things that happened was that I ran into my old friend Jack, who I went to high school with. It was through him that I heard about the convention.
Jack's a transman, which means that he's going through a transition right now. He's really cool. He mentioned to me that he wants to go back and see a particular teacher, but since he's begun taking hormones (his voice is very different now), he's a little worried about going back to see that teacher. Not so much because that teacher would hate him, but because it might be a little bit of a shock.
I know if I was in Jack's position, I would feel really awkward about it too. I told him that if he went with a group of friends (we all sat together in the back) or someone gave the teacher warning, it might be fine. I didn't think about it at the time, but I probably should have offered to go with him. Hell, I'd even be polite to my ex-boyfriend to get this to work for Jack.
Anyway, I digressed before I even got started on what I wanted to say. The steampunk convention was really cool. There was a merchants room, and I saw all sorts of cool costumes and props and other nerdy things for sale. Even though I had a fair amount of moolah on me, I always feel like I should be very careful what I buy. (NO impulse purchases.) So I mostly looked. There were some beautiful hats and costumes for sale, and they were very expensive looking. I actually managed to make myself a pretty decent costume just out of the stuff I have in my closet. The only thing I really need to do is to improve this look is maybe add an accessory or two to make it more steampunk-y. I collected tons of fliers and business cards, so I'm hoping that there will be people for me to go to for more stuff, should I decide to buy it. I'm a big believer that it's never too early to start making wishlists for Christmas or your birthday.
The only thing I ended up buying were some clip on magnifying glasses. Basically, one of the most important parts of a steampunk costume is the goggles. But of course these goggles have a very particular design, one that suctions down on each eye, making them less than ideal for those of us who wear glasses full time. So, even though this is one nerdy subculture, you can't help but feel, as someone who wears glasses, that you're being discriminated against once again. But they also make these handy magnifiers you can clip to your glasses to give you a steampunk look and still use your prescription lenses.

I'm also thinking that maybe I should use one of my belts and just buy a few simple add-ons, like a flask or jar or gun holster (with gun, obviously) and that will look way more steampunk than some of the other people I saw there. Steampunk is all in the accessories.
Matt and I headed over to the game room for part of the convention. We played the game Arkham Horror, which is based on the Lovecraft stories. It was this big, impressively complicated game involving investigators trying to stop monsters from destroying the town. The representative showing this game looking like he belonged in a mobster movie and smelled like Burger King fries.
100 posts! Which would probably be more impressive if I hadn't skipped two days of posting, just because there hasn't been much going on or too much going on for me to get to room in the day to post something.